“I don’t want to take up literature in a money-making spirit, or be very anxious about making large profits, but selling it at a loss is another thing altogether, and an amusement I cannot well afford.” — Lewis Carroll There’s a woman I’m friendly with. She’s smart, creative, and yet I cannot get behind her…

There are certain steps in the book writing and publishing journey that I’d just rather skip. Pitching my idea to agents, for one. So this Saturday, I’m off to the Writers for Change Conference in San Francisco to do just that. Going against the grain is good for the writer’s soul, on occasion. The last…

Sitting at a computer staring at a blank screen can kill your creativity. I know. I simply can’t write my first drafts on a computer. Instead, I take my journal out of doors up on a hill looking across to Mount Tamalpais in the distance. Here, the wind brushes against me, birds sing from the…

In 1929, Virginia Woolf argued for the need for women to have a place of their own in which to write. She understood that women, because their lives were tethered to children, housework, and husbands, were thwarted creatively. Without fighting for the right to the time and space to express themselves, they were doomed always…

As someone who writes meditative essays that help people get in touch with their inner wildness, I know that flow is essential. I mix all sorts of ideas and references together, exploring inner psyche, outer landscape, as well as offering up stories and examples. The trick is to pull all the pieces together into one…

Do you know people who let perfectionism run their lives? Are you one of them? If you’re like many a creative soul, you’re probably all too aware of the fear and anxiety that courses through the perfectionist’s veins, the self doubt that paralyzes her creativity and the critical inner “judge” that finds fault in the…

It happens to all of us. We hit the wall–the dreaded thing called writer’s block. All of a sudden, we can’t write. Not a phrase, not a sentence, not one word worth a darn thing. Frustrated, we work harder. We’ll break the wall down, we’ll keep writing, even if it kills us. We fuel up…

Fiction or non-fiction, your writing has to provoke a curiosity to know more. Readers ask questions from the moment they enter a book: Where and when does the story take place? Who is the main character? What is the conflict? What is the goal of the piece? The idea is to tease out the questions…

Annie Dillard is one of my love-to-hate authors. Her writing’s so good it makes the hair on my head rise–really! It’s as if I get caught in an electrical storm of sheer linguistic power. Wham, bam, sizzle. Take the following,from Pilgrim at Tinker Creek Today a gibbous moon marked the eastern sky like a smudge…

Tuesday night is my writing group night. It’s my time to get feedback and support for my work. Last night, my reading was followed by a pause. More accurately, a very long pause. Then Lee spoke up, “I didn’t get interested until here.” I watched her finger slide down the page, then another page, until…

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